Sony has begun shipping their new 46-inch BRAVIA XBR LCD Flat Panel HDTV.
The Sony KDL-46XBR3 features all the bells and whistles you’d expect from a top-notch display. The panel features full 1080p (1920×1080) native resolution and three 1080p HDMI inputs (two on the back, one on the front). The set is also equipped with a wide variety of analog connections including one S-Video, three Composite, two Component and one VGA inputs. Also on-board is an ATSC tuner for receiving over-the-air HDTV signals. However, there are no cablecard slots, which is a bit of a bummer.
The set offers Sony’s advanced “Digital Reality Creation” v2.5 video system, which improves sharpness and dimensionality, while limiting nasty artifacts like edge enhancement. Full-black to full-white contrast ratio measures admirable 7000 to 1 and Sony says you can expect a “real world” number of 1300 to 1. Backlighting is provided by a wide color gamut cold cathode fluorescent lamp, said to provide a wider than normal color range.
List price is $4599.99 and the set is available now from SonyStyle, but can be found through other retailers for about $500 less. The set’s 52-inch (KDL-52XBR2 and KDL-52XBR3) brethren should also be available in November for about $2000 to $2500 more.
